yet, as the century opens, he was certainly the most remarkable personage in the world. His name was a terror in every English nursery. When politics ran high in our own country, in 1812, he was the "rock of offense," against which the waves beat and divided. A distinguished divine of New-England, in a public discourse from the pulpit, designated him as the "first-born son of the devil.”* We have now reached a point of time when we can pronounce with some deliberation upon the general effects of his extraordinary career, and of that great revolution in the midst of which he emerged. There was too much of terror and of mystery in those events, at the time of their occurrence, to allow men to judge with calmness. There was then scarcely one honest friend of liberty whose ardor was not damped and whose faith in the high destinies of mankind was not shaken. It is now our deliberate opinion that the French Revolution, in spite of all its follies and crimes, its atrocities and sacrifices of human life, was a great blessing to the world. Deliverances were wrought, though amid plagues, and signs, and wonders. Demons were exorcised, even though they did rage and foam, rending and tearing their miserable victims. We pronounce no eulogium upon the Colossus of war who bestrode Europe, when we speak of the changes which God has wrought by his wrathful and ambitious agency. He was as a rod of iron, by which the Almighty dashed in pieces the old despotisms of the world, like potters' vessels. Nations were lifted up from under the heavy oppressions by which they had long been stifled. A revolutionary spirit was abroad all over the world. Mountains did not stay it, nor did seas stop it. A new idea was thrown into the heart of society, which, of necessity, produced explosions and the greatest of changes. That idea was the rights of subjects,-the inalienable freedom of man. The world had heard enough before, in all forms, of the divine right of kings. The "Rights of Man" was the title of the book published by Thomas Paine, then in England, in reply to Mr. Burke, who, in his Reflections on the French Revolution, was for defending old establishments, notwithstanding their abuses. But those establishments, political and ecclesiastical, went down as at the breath of God's nostrils. The spirit of liberty, of humanity, began to breathe; and we are reaping now the effects of those great commotions. The telescope was invented, and the laws of mathematical science discovered, in former centuries; but their use and application were

* Rev. David Osgood, D.D.

reserved for us, the majority of the planets belonging to our system having been discovered within the last half century. Just so are we permitted to see the uses and results of events which promised little or nothing at the time of their occurrence. Daylight was admitted into the most dark and hopeless regions. Bodies which had been regarded dead as the mummies were magnetized with a new life. Wars were not confined to the English Channel or the Rhine; they were carried into the remote East, and were a day of resurrection to the slumbering nations. The French army invades Egypt. "Soldiers," says Napoleon to his troops, "from the summit. of the pyramids forty centuries look down upon you!" The advancing column rolls over the plain of Esdraelon, and their flushed and excited commander looks out upon the strife from the top of Tabor, where our Lord was transfigured. The concussion is felt throughout the Ottoman Empire. Arabia, Persia, India, are involved in the general fray; and the English become masters of the whole of Southern India, excepting the Mahratta States. Soon after the French invasion of Spain in 1808, the Spanish colonies in Central and South America begin a series of struggles for independence. A large force is sent against them, and after a long and bloody contest the Spaniards are expelled, and their former possessions are created into many republics, of divers fortunes and prospects. The civilized world was thoroughly overturned and overturned, and society began to be organized on new principles, and pervaded by a new life.

It is true, there was a reaction. The spirit of popular liberty met with checks and rebuffs. The House of Bourbon is re-established. The battle of Waterloo restores exiled kings, prelates, and aristocracies. It infused new life into the Pope, who for years had not breathed freely. "The battle and its result," said Robert Hall, "seemed to me to put back the clock of the world six degrees." But it was only as the recession of a wave or two. The ocean was not dammed up. It was inevitable that other revolutions should come. In 1830 they came again, with less of cruelty, less of mistake. In this year the Belgians secure their independence, the house of Orange is excluded from the throne, and a new Constitution is formed by the representatives of the people according to which a new King is elected. In Switzerland an aristocratical government is exchanged for a democratical. At the same time political commotions arise in Germany, and constitutional charters are secured for Saxony, Hanover, and the electorate of Hesse. A general desire

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for liberty pervades Italy; and insurrections in Bologna, Modena, and Parma are suppressed by the Austrian army. By the Revolution of the three days the Papal priesthood of France is again overthrown. In the very same year a revolution occurs at Warsaw; troubles and dissensions break out in Greece; a new organization takes place of the relations between the nobility and burghers of Russia; a general desire of representative government prevails in Prussia; and the opposition in the British Parliament, backed by the people, are strenuous for those national reforms which were carried under the Grey Ministry, two years after. Nor was this the end. The striking events of the last three years are but reverberations of the first explosion. At each repetition of the struggle much has been gained, and former errors and excesses avoided. Louis the Sixteenth was beheaded, and his wife, the pride of courts, inhumanly murdered. Louis Philippe leaves the Tuilleries, the Queen on his arm, unmolested, a crowd of revolutionists opening to let them pass. In a few instances, Hungary and Italy, we have been disappointed as to results. But the end has not come yet. There has been a succession of changes in the right direction; and the face of the world to-day no more resembles what it was at the close of the last century, than the post-diluvian earth was like its appearance before the flood. There are more written. constitutions defining and securing the rights of subjects, than ever existed in the whole history of the world before. The increasing intelligence of society has operated most beneficially upon the ruling powers. The greatest despotisms are forced to recede when they encounter national sentiments. The veil of separation which the Orientals wisely spread before their monarchs, and behind which they have remained like idols of dark origin and uncertain attributes, has, in continental Europe, been rent to the bottom, and kings are held answerable to law, justice, and humanity.

Perhaps the most striking change which has occurred, and this in connection with that revolution and that personage in France of whom we have spoken, is in the condition and prospects of the Papal Church. Recall that Church as it was, an incubus on the nations, a vast iron tyranny overshadowing Europe. Think of it as it was when kings stood barefoot at the gate of the Pontifical palace, or meekly held the stirrup of the Pope's palfrey; and nations forsook their own anointed and hereditary monarchs when censured and excommunicated by the successor of St. Peter. France became imbued with infidelity. That country which from the time

of Charlemagne to the present hour has been most intimately allied to the risings and fallings of the Papal power,—that country whose vocation, according to Lacordaire, is the defense and propagation of the Papal Church,-it was in France that the spirit of infidelity appeared which was destined to eat like a canker into the heart of the Papal domination. That infidelity began with opposition to Papal pretension and Papal cruelty. It was allied with the nascent spirit of liberty. Had it not been for this it would have passed away like the Deism of England without leaving any deep furrows in the soil of the country. But so it was that French infidelity was provoked into being by religious abuses, religious fooleries, and religious pretensions. The true secret of its power was in the zeal with which it espoused the cause of justice, freedom, and humanity; till in French literature, and French politics, humanity, justice, and freedom became identified with infidelity. The French language, at this time, was the medium of European intercourse. It was spoken at all the courts of the Continent, from the English Channel to the Bosphorus. The infidelity of Paris thus met with a rapid and universal dissemination. It spread like the air over the whole of Europe. It was an assailant which no police could stop. Freedom from superstition was counted an honorable distinction, a frontlet of divine inspiration. By means of some inexplicable power, the altars of religion were deserted, the mysteries of religion were performed in vacant cathedrals, and the priests themselves smiled at their own credulity. At this juncture there arose out of the tumultuous elements of European society that great aspirant, whose military and political tactics were destined to complete what infidelity had begun. To the eye of Napoleon the Pope of Rome was little more than any other sovereign and man. He summons the

Pontiff to Paris. The Pope threatens him with excommunication. Napoleon heeds it no more than a whiff of snow when crossing the St. Bernard. The bull of excommunication was issued. It was only the advertisement of Pontifical imbecility. When Gregory VII. excommunicated Henry IV. of

C'était la nation franque, et la nation franque était la première nation catholique donnée par Dieu à son Eglise. Ce n'est pas moi qui décerne cette louange magnifique à ma patrie; c'est la papauté à qui il a plu, par justice, d'appeler nos rois les fils aînés de l'Eglise. De même que Dieu a dit à son Fils de toute éternité: Tu es mon premier né; la papauté a dit à la France: Tu es ma fille aînée. Elle a fait plus, s'il est possible; afin d'exprimer plus energiquement ce qu'elle pensait de nous, elle a créé un barbarisme sublime; elle a nommé la France le Royaume christianissime--“ christianissimum regnum." (Conferences de NôtreDame de Paris, p. 440.)

Germany, his subjects felt themselves absolved from all allegiance to their sovereign, and fled from him as if he had been smitten with the pestilence. When Pius VII. excommunicated Napoleon, not a corporal left the French army. Undiverted from his purpose, the "man of destiny" strips the Pontiff of political power. The Papal dominions were annexed to France. The French flag waves from the castle of St. Angelo. The title King of Rome is conferred by the French Emperor upon his infant son; and he builds for him a sumptuous palace on the Quirinal hill. The Papacy was brought so low as to be an object of pity rather than hatred or dread. The time came for reaction, as might have been predicted. The Pope was reinstated by the allied sovereigns. Exiled prelates came back to Paris, and the form of the prostrate Church was lifted up. To the eye it has been recovering from its shame and depression. With all these admissions, with all which the Papal See has regained, it bears no resemblance to its ancient power. Its teeth of iron have been broken. Pius IX. has been exiled, not by foreign invasion, but by his own subjects. Had it not been for foreign protection, he would have been thrown into the Tiber by the inhabitants of his own metropolis. Faith in his pretensions has been shaken more effectually than ever, and the thin veil of religion will no more hide the odious features of tyranny. If a Pope is to continue to reign, it must be with some show of justice and freedom. He must be the patron and defender of human rights. If the Papal religion is to maintain its hold, it must be by appeals to truth and reason. Christian faith, which at the close of the last century was driven out from continental Europe, has returned with a better discrimination. Men may be skeptical as to the Papacy without renouncing belief in Christianity. Multitudes now deride and scorn the pretensions of the Roman Pontiff and his Church, without vaulting over into the deism of Robespierre or the frightful atheism of Clootz. In the latest revolution of Paris, the crucifix was borne in advance of the crowd, and Jesus Christ was hailed as the great apostle of Fraternity, Equality, and Humanity. The next action is already in progress, and millions will learn to discriminate between Christianity and Ecclesiastism, convinced that there is a religion which does not oppose reason and justice and progress, but is the grand ally and defender of all which concerns the true welfare of man. The old Papal Church has been dislodged from its moorings, and like an immense iceberg is floating down into the gulf-stream; and as surely as ice